Donor: A Vampire Victim's Tale [GAME RELEASED!]

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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@DenaFan 110 pages?! I am so excited about this! Please keep me posted :heart_eyes:

I did not! Just an FYI that you can DM me here as well if you want to reach me privately.

Lol not at the moment… Case in point: it’s 8:35 PM right now and I’m still working. Things have gotta calm down sooner of later, right??? Either way, I promise to keep you posted since you’ve been kind enough to do the same for me.

Take care, and no rush! There’s always next Halloween :jack_o_lantern:

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Hi Elena. Hope you are keeping okay.

I am planning to send you an early Christmas present :gift:- starting with the first two chapters from my new, still-in-the-works story. They are MS Word document enclosures. What’s the best way to get them to you? I don’t wish to put them onto the FFnet website yet, until my story is actually finished.

This way, I’m hoping to get some feedback from an established author on the mystery I’ve written for the early chapters! See if you can crack it! :man_detective: :mag_right:

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YESSS @DenaFan I’ll DM with you my personal email address, and promise to get you some feedback by this weekend (work is already kinda nuts this week).

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I’d love a copy too, please! I’ve been following your work with interest for a while and would love to read what you have, if that’s OK!

@Elena_H PS: Thanks for loaning me your code that time for the minigames, it was very handy <3

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Hello Elijuneau. Thanks for your interest!

Which of my works have you already read, and what was your opinion of them? I’m presuming you mean my ‘Donor’ fanfiction - but I have other material on fanfiction.

If you are happy to send me your email address by Direct Mail, I’ll send over the first two chapters to you - as I have with Elena. Please bear in mind that this latest story of mine is still in the works (I keep having writer’s block and a lack of focus to push on with it. It is a book length story.

Also, my weekend is likely to be a bit hectic - so I’ll email to you when I can!

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I haven’t read any of your stuff, but I saw that you were making fanfiction, so I was interested. No, I haven’t read your Donor fanfiction, and would love it, as well as your other ones. I’ve PM’ed you my email! Thank you :slight_smile:

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Oh good! I’m so glad to hear it!!!

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Hey, I’m sorry if this has already been asked and answered, but I just noticed that Donor is back in print on Amazon. Is it the same text as the previous edition, or has it been updated? And is there any chance we’ll see Bait back in print soon as well?

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Is it the same text as the previous edition, or has it been updated? And is there any chance we’ll see Bait back in print soon as well?

Hi @AletheiaKnights - I can’t believe you noticed that! Yes, I re-released the print edition when updating the cover art. I didn’t make any updates to the original text, however.

I’d say there’s an excellent chance you’ll see Bait back in print within the next few months. But for that one, I do want to tweak a couple of things before releasing it back into the wild. I promise to post back to this thread when it’s out. :slight_smile:

Best,
Elena

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That’s awesome! I can’t wait to add Bait to my collection!

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Coming back to this game thread after a few years bc I saw this TikTok and it fits this game so insanely perfectly I got goosebumps TikTok - Make Your Day

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That is… uncanny. AND I LOVE IT. What’s the video based on? I tried to figure it out in the comments and am thoroughly confused :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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So it’s been a long time since I’ve been here. The first time I left a comment, I was around fourteen and still thought the Divergent series was peak literature. That being said, Donor was even better this time around! :smiley: The first time I played the game, I wasn’t exactly a skilled writer, and my old critiques make me cringe a bit looking back. It did make me really happy to see some of it taken into account, though, especially after a few replays.

I bought the game and proceeded to play it in an insane frenzy of “this plot has Hooked me” over the course of about 3 hours. It is, in fact, amazing, and I wanted to touch on a few things that I really enjoyed.

  • Gender-locked protag: This was a common complaint iirc, but really I think it works. I got the impression that Rich and Paul have more…traditional ideas of gender roles, and because of that I can’t see Rich wanting to keep around a male MC for a few reasons (he likes his captives to be meek and submissive). An enby captive probably wouldn’t have worked for similar reasons (as a nonbinary person myself, I sort of got the idea Rich would see them as inherently rebellious b/c of the way they refuse to conform to societal/gender norms). That might be just me though.
  • Xanax mechanic: Really clever, creative, and very well-implemented. My minor complaint is that the amount you take on chapter 1 influences your habit later down the line, even though chapter 1’s Xanax usage turned out to be the same in the end. Other than that, it’s done well, and I also enjoyed the fact that the MC was never shamed by the narrative for her addiction.
  • The characters: I hate all of them, but in a good way: they’re not boring or shallow, they’re just incredibly fucked up people (some of them more honest about that than others). I think that’s why my favorite way of killing Paul was to poison him in the diner. Throughout the entire game he’s been lying to and manipulating the MC. It’s so damn satisfying to be a badass and give him a taste of your own medicine. Richard is an unrepentantly cruel ass, but he never hides his intentions. Despite that, I sympathize with all of them to some extent. Even Charles, the bastard. His route was…bittersweet, to say the least. (Oh, and can I say how much I love the last names? The thread mentioned they were named Richard Nadir and Paul Towers - a nadir is the lowest point, while if something “towers” it’s the tallest/highest thing there. The high and the low. I really like it.)
  • The depiction of MC’s anxiety; I struggle with social anxiety (while not quite agoraphobia, there is some overlap) and this was done in a way that felt really respectful and spoke to my experiences - especially the MC worrying about being worried. Ugh, if that isn’t the ultimate anxiety spiral, I don’t know what is.
  • CHAPTER SELECTS. Holy cow, I never realized how much I needed these in my life, but they were glorious and SO SO useful. After playing a few other CoGs that did not have this feature, I realize that Donor has spoiled me.
  • The Easter egg in dinner theater got me. I’m impressed the math actually checks out after going for that long.
  • Ending #7 never fails to get me. I know that technically #6 (BFFs) is supposed to be the best one (it’s the hardest to get, too!), but I am not a big fan of Richard or Paul, so I’m glad I have the opportunity to just murder them and get away with it. I love playing MC as a badass who complies when she needs to and lies her ass off so that she’ll live another day…but when she’s down to the wire, her humanity wins out, and she ends up getting rid of all 3 vampires once and for all, accidentally overcoming her addictions and anxieties in the process.

Overall, this was a LOVELY gem of a game and I had a great time coming back to it all these years later.

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Nice to see you again @ToasterCorgi! :hugs: I fell behind on my personal email again, so apologies for the late reply.

Pretty sure this is the first time someone’s taken the time to post their thoughts after replaying (at least after so many years). Let’s do this! :smile:

Hmm. I agree with you assessment there. While Rich & Paul would be extremely open minded WRT gender norms/sexuality due to what might be considered an “alternative lifestyle” of their own, it would change the MCs perceived value as:

  • A donor (yes, Richard believes cis-gendered females are less likely to put up a physical fight)
  • A bait for kills (Paul’s trying to cast the widest net possible, so any captive with a limited dating pool–or what he might perceive as a limited dating pool–would be worthless to him)

Yeah - my goal for chapter 1 was to train the player on the Xanax mechanic before I introduced any real consequences, but I agree it’s a little weird.

FYI, I really enjoyed writing that one :smiling_imp:

Thanks for that - I know everyone’s experience is different, but I could really only write about it from my own experiences with social anxiety, and I’m so glad it resonated with you.

Heh, I remember playing “Choice of the Dragon” many many years ago, and being so pissed off that I couldn’t try out different scenarios without replaying the whole game. While I’m sure many purists will disagree, an optional “back” button for philistines like myself would be a much appreciated enhancement.

IIRC that came from a suggestion in this thread!

Is #6 technically the best? I’m not sure if I’d say that. I just made it the hardest to get because–let’s face it–it’s certainly the least likely.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts after all these years, @ToasterCorgi. Seeing this post was an unexpected, wonderful surprise, and I still can’t wipe the stupid smile off my face after reading it.

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Hehe, I’m glad you appreciated my comment! I was thrilled to see my username pop up in the credits section too :grin:

It makes sense to me that Richard and Paul are open minded about gender/sexuality stuff, and technically that is canon - in ending #1, Paul is fond of the MC’s partner no matter the gender. But they’d likely have some old-fashioned mindsets, so gender-locking makes sense to me. There’s also the fact I have a bit of a problem with other CoGs that don’t really acknowledge the players gender save for pronouns (it kinda feels to me like ignoring the different experiences that come with gender) - but it’s a tricky needle to thread. A few people will be dissatisfied either way.

I’ll agree that ending #6 is trickiest to get (or at least as tricky as #7; getting the dagger was harder than I remembered!) It felt like the game was nudging you a bit towards one of the more “perpetual” endings, like #2-5 (save for Destination Unknown; I just dont remember what # that was). It makes sense, though - the vampires outclass our MC in a lot of ways. Escaping should be difficult but satisfying. (And it is! Ah, how I love killing Paul…)

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